14 DAY TRIAL // With less than two weeks until BlackBerry announces its quarterly earnings, a new report coming from Morgan Stanley aimed at investors casts some shadow over the Canadian company's future.
We reported several times about BlackBerry's attempt to get as many carriers as possible on its side and failing, but Morgan Stanley's note to investors is more blatant and bleak than we have expected.
According to Benzinga, Morgan Stanley's note mentions that BlackBerry's sales of software and smartphones are “not tracking anywhere close” to where the company's CEO John Chen predicted last year in order for BlackBerry to be above the red line.
The report claims that Morgan Stanley said that as many as 8,000 Classic and Passport smartphones were sold in the last quarter, which is clearly a mistake.
John Chen announced a few months ago that his company got no less than 200,000 BlackBerry Passport pre-orders in the first two weeks and that the numbers will be reflected in the financial results to be announced on March 27.
8,000 or 800,000 Classic and Passport units?
This means that Morgan Stanley may have said that BlackBerry sold 800,000 Passport and Classic units, which is, they say, “well below” the 2-3 million needed in FY16.
Since most carriers avoid adding any BlackBerry phones to their portfolio because they are selling very hard, even to business customers, it's no wonder that the Canadian company is having a hard time getting to the 2-3 million units needed to survive.
Although we shouldn't take Morgan Stanley's note for granted, we reckon the numbers predicted by the company don't look too good for BlackBerry.
Anyway, we should wait until March 27 when BlackBerry's financial report is expected to be published.
In the meantime, you can check out our full BlackBerry Passport review for more details on one of the most recent smartphones launched by the Canadian company.